


Graceless Hearts

by Tabithian



Series: Crooked Hearts [2]
Category: DCU, DCU (Animated), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 19:03:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4316157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Companion piece to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/524967">Crooked Hearts</a> from Jason's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Graceless Hearts

Jason doesn't know why, but he expects it to be harder than it is to go back to Gotham. As though a city like her would take notice of his death, would stop even for a moment to mourn his passing. (Like anything he'd done for her meant a damn thing.)

But the thing is, Gotham never really changes, does she. Always there, a dark blot of greed and corruption, a certain kind of _wrong_ that doesn't seem to exist anywhere else. The kind that takes and _twists_ , turns people out just this little bit skewed, out of step with the rest of the world. (Don't tell him other people don't see it in Bruce, in _Dick_ no matter how well they try to hide it.)

Talia is helpful, files and dossiers and photos. Glossy 8x10s chronicling the fallout after his death, Bruce going hard and cold in a way he never was. Dick floundering, Barbara and Alfred fading to the edges. 

Maybe he imagines it, but it can't be a coincidence that the pictures go from stark black and white to full-blown color the moment the damn kid enters the scene. (Talia gives him an unreadable look, but he wouldn't put it past her to throw in a bit of artistic license with this bullshit, wouldn't put it past her to throw in a little emotional manipulation, her father's daughter after all.)

Shots of the kid at Bruce's side, flare of a cape against Gotham's skyline. Bright colors - red and green and yellow - to counter Bruce's somber grays and blacks. Fighting beside him, quick and nimble, tripping up thieves and muggers and going up against the likes of fucking Joker and the others and Jason sees red.

Hands clenching on the photos in his hands because. (This kid. Jesus, Bruce just won't learn, this _kid_.)

This kid who's smaller than Jason was, smaller than _Dick_ when they were Robin. This kid who's so damn young, so damn small. 

Gotham never really changes and this kid. She's going to break him, crush him under her feet and never notice, never give a damn if he's not careful. (Jason was careful and look what happened there.)

And maybe Jason's still angry at Bruce, at Dick - at the damn world for being what it is that he does what he does. 

********

Bruce and the others have become. It's not complacent, really, but. There is a pattern to it, the patrols they run through the city. (Or maybe it's just that Jason knows a little about the way Bruce works, thinks, after working for him as long as he did, and isn't that a little terrifying.)

Moments where they break off from one another to deal with a crime in progress that only needs one of them to handle, or a situation that requires a personal touch, someone they've forged a bond with that will only talk to that one person.

There's also the fact that Bruce and Dick seem to think the kid can handle certain patrol routes on his own, backup just a call away if he needs it. (And that's another tick against the kid, resentment that Jason never had that trust.)

He finds the kid midway through his patrol where he's stopped for a break, thermos of coffee at his side, feet dangling over the side of the building. Seemingly relaxed, shoulders loose and attention on the city below him, following the flow of traffic, but.

Jason takes a step closer, deliberately scuffs his foot along the loose gravel on the roof and feels a small smile start at the corner of his mouth when the kid shifts, small enough movement that his cape almost hides it as he moves his hand closer to the bo at his back.

"Daddy Bats letting you out on your own now, kid?" he asks, like he doesn't know. Hasn't been fucking stalking the kid for weeks now, learning him.

The kid slides his bo free and rises to his feet, turns to face Jason.

Doesn't say a damn word, and Jason would be surprised except he's not. (He's read the files and dossiers Talia gave him after all, has seen the kid in action himself.)

"Well all right," Jason says, and feels his smile go sharp, go feral. "Lets get this over with."

********

The kid puts up a decent fight, but he's still young, lacks the experience and training Jason has. Goes down hard but doesn't give up, and that more than anything is what Jason was looking for. 

********

Jason was trained by Bruce, yes, but he's had other teachers before and since and it's not that hard to place hidden cameras just so or hack communications lines, not that hard at all.

He watches the Bats close rank around the kid after his attack, watches them hover and mother and smother the poor little bastard and - 

"Jesus kid, I'm almost sorry," he mutters, watching the camera feed from the manor Bruce pretends not to know about and Jason pretends Bruce isn't pretending. (Being a Bat is complicated, being a former Bat is even more so.)

The poor kid is trapped with Dick on one side and Barbara on the other, Bruce across from them telling a story about some face-eating ghost he'd run into while teaming up with Jason Blood. It's clear that Dick is the mastermind behind this with the looks Bruce and the kid keep shooting him, both of them knowing what a terrible idea it is, but.

But Jason can't not keep an eye on their antics after that, can he. Not when the kid's long-suffering expression had been comedy gold, and certainly not when he'd actually used a nerve strike on Dick to get out of a cuddle attack, Bruce not-quite smiling in the background.

********

Truth be told, Jason still doesn't know what to make of the time he spent with Young Justice.

It had been a novel experience, being seen as Dick's younger brother (Little Wing), working with people who compared him to Dick without realizing. Looking for signs of Dick in him and coming up short, surprised when he didn't react the way they expected.

Thing of it is, though. He'd liked them, for the most part.

Jason's seen that damned case in the 'Cave, but he's not expecting to see the memorial in Mount Justice because he hadn't been part of the team for very long before Joker happened.

He stares at it, walks around the base, tries to make sense of it even though he's on a deadline before the security measures come back online.

“Jesus Christ,” Jason mutters, staring up at a younger image of himself. “The hell is wrong with you people?”

A pre-set alarm chimes in his ear, ten minutes left, and Jason turns from the memorial because he has business to take care of. (Systems to hack, cameras to plant, the usual.)

********

After a while, after he's had time to think about it, Jason decides if he's got access to all these systems, he might as well be _helpful_.

********

“Way to crash and burn, there, Dickie,” Jason says, takes a sip of his drink.

He has safe-houses and equipment caches all over Gotham now, little boltholes to go to ground when Bruce or one of his Birds gets too close.

This is the one he tends to gravitate to, even though he knows that's a bad idea with Bruce out there looking for him, but.

But this is where he gets the best reception, where he gets to watch Dick and the others in action. Toss out some free advice or comments time to time.

“Not helpful, Jason,” Dick growls, does one of his twisty flipping moves and come down hard on an armored guard's shoulders, bringing him down.

Jason tosses a piece of popcorn up, catches it easily in his mouth. Smirks when Dick steps through the doorway and alarms being wailing.

“Oh, I'm ever so sorry, then. What if I told you about the infrared sensors in the hallway you just tripped?” 

“Jason!”

“Oops. Might want to run, Dickie, they've got dogs.”

********

Jason may or may not be keeping an eye on Bruce and the others. May or may not track Bruce down a few times, see the damn Batmobile sitting pretty in Crime Alley on nice, shiny new tires and think, _why the hell not?_ to himself a time or two. (Or every fucking time Bruce does it because seriously, why the hell not?)

********

Jason also may or may not be keeping an exceptionally close eye on that damn kid.

Who knows, really.

Just because the kid's turned out to be as tricky as Bruce can be on his better days is no reason to take an interest, fuck no.

But.

The kid's good.

Surprisingly so. 

Good enough that Bruce and Dick let him work on his own in Gotham. That they put him in a leadership position in Young Justice. (That they let him become Robin at all.)

He's good, and is a little bit more ruthless than Bruce and Dick seem to be aware of, which Jason thinks is goddamn hilarious.

Oh, the kid's not like Jason, no, but. He sees things a little more differently than Bruce and Dick ever did and that is _fascinating_ to Jason.

********

Problem is, no matter how good anyone is, something always goes wrong.

********

Jason almost misses it, out breaking faces and making sure people know Red Hood is nowhere near as nice as Batman or his Birds when it comes to this kind of thing.

He's finishing up his patrol and hears some two-bit punk bragging to his friends about helping take Robin down, how the little shit's finally going to get what's coming to him, and Jason.

Jason's still a Bat deep down. (Deep, deep down.)

He waits until the punk's friend leaves, time running down, and drops down on the punk like an avenging angel, or maybe just a pissed off Bat. (They're one and the same at times, here in Gotham.)

“Hey, pal,” Jason says, sets a foot in the middle of the punk's back and _leans_. “Heard you telling your buddy something just now. Mind sharing?” 

********

Jason can't just go to Bruce or Dick with what he knows like a good little Bat, no.

But what he can do is this:

“Hey, Dickiebird. Know where I can find the Replacement? It's been a while since the two of us talked.”

He puts the right kind of emphasis in there to get Dick bristling.

“Jason, what - “

Because Dick is off on some low-priority mission with that team of his, leading a bunch of rookies through it, and now is really not the time for that.

“I'm in Gotham,” Jason says, slides the lock on his safe-house door. “Can't seem to find the little bird anywhere.”

There's a certain kind of silence on Dick's end.

“Might want to start looking,” Jason says, and cuts the line.

Sits down in front of his computers and starts them up because he has work to do.

********

It doesn't take long for them to find out where the Replacement's being kept, not when Bruce finds a punk tied to the hood of the Batmobile, terrified out of his mind and more than willing to talk.

********

There's a thing about being a sidekick that Jason sure as hell doesn't miss, and it's this.

It's fuckers like the ones who go after kids like the Replacement when the person they really want is the goddamned Batman. It's these assholes who are so fucking desperate they stoop this low.

Dick told Jason stories about the times he got grabbed, and Jason remembers thinking to himself that, no, that would never be him, he was better than that, only he never was.

He got grabbed, and Bruce or one of the others found him in time, cavalry to the rescue. (Until they didn't, but that's a story for another time.)

And now, like it's some kind of fucked up tradition, you're not a real sidekick until this happens to you, it's the Replacement's turn.

“Hey, Replacement.”

Jason's watching two little dots racing towards a third on his monitors. Watching them on a third screen playing footage from a security camera as they tear through walls of goons, cold and hard and fast.

Waits, straining for -

“Jason?”

The kid sounds like shit, like he's running on fumes and Jason.

Jason digs deep, finds that part of him that's still a Bat. (He's been unearthing it bit by bit over the last year, even if he doesn't want to admit it to himself.)

"Lucky you, huh, Replacement?" 

Jason keeps the kid talking until Bruce and Dick cut into the line, pull the Replacement out of whatever dark hole the assholes put him in, and then.

And then he pulls the headset off, sits back in his chair and stares at the monitors, feeling drained, fucking well exhausted. (Watches three bright points of light headed to a location just outside of Gotham Jason knows well.)

********

Jason doesn't quite drop off the radar after that, but.

He does some thinking, maybe hunts down whatever assholes Bruce and Dick managed to miss when they went after the fuckers who took the Replacement. 

He still keeps an eye on Bruce and his Birds, but he doesn't hack into their comms, doesn't offer super helpful advice or comments. 

(Strange, then, how an anonymous tip will pop up every now and then for them..)

********

Jason still follows Bruce down to Crime Alley every so often with a little stop at one of his equipment stashes soon after. Realizes the place is getting a little crowded and takes a moment to think of the date.

(Bruce was always a hard person to buy for.)

********

Alfred is the _best_.

********

Jason watches the Replacement move closer, and waits.

He's got blood on his gloves, and in the alley below them there's a punk scrambling to find his missing teeth, and yet the damn kid is still getting closer.

“The hell do you want?”

The Replacement stops, cocks his head and _looks_ at Jason

“Replacement - “

“Thank you,” the kid says, quiet, serious. 

It's on the tip of his tongue to ask what the kid's talking about, but. Jason's been wearing a Bat on his chest since he came back to Gotham, and if that doesn't mean something, he doesn't know what does. 

“They finally stop hovering?”

Because Jason remembers that too, from way back when.

Remembers Bruce and Dick and all the others with their worry and fear and love, and.

The kid shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “Little bit.”

And Jason. 

He doesn't quite laugh because of course they wouldn't. (They never do.)

Which means Bruce or Dick or Barbara are probably out there right now, watching the kid. 

Jason tips his head to the side, considering him.

Still so damn young, so damn small. (But still Robin.)

“Think you can keep up, Replacement?” 

The night's just starting, and there's all kind of fucked up shit going down. It'd be nice to know there's someone who can watch his back.

The kid grins, slow. Confident.

“We'll have to see, won't we.”

Cocky little bastard.

Jason moves away, towards the edge of the roof. Sees the kid follow.

He looks out over the Gotham, cold and cruel. She never changes, always takes and take and _takes_ , but.

The kid steps up even with him, toes just over the lip of the roof. Slides a look up at Jason with a little bit of a challenge in it, and Jason.

Jason grins, because he _knows_ Gotham, has her in his blood. 

“Show me what you've got, Robin.”


End file.
